Monday

Today is just an ordinary day.  A Monday.  I've been relatively good at resting on Mondays.  I clean up my room and make  to-do list and exercise and return clothes I bought impulsively online.  I resist the urge to work and I often have to drag my thoughts back from the many tasks that await me at the office.  On Mondays, I replay the mandate to rest and I remind myself that God wants me to put boundaries on this day and to calm the voices in my head and to breathe and most of all, to trust that everything that needs to get done can happen in the other six days.  Every time I feel myself opening my email, I can picture God whispering, "trust me" and I have to forcibly remove my fingers from the keyboard that is ready to enter the password on the login screen.  

Why is it so hard to do something I long to do?  Every part of me wants to rest.  I want to stay in my pajamas and curl up on the couch and sip tea and read and yet, somehow I think deep down I feel that my value will be less if I take a break.  The "things" won't get done.  

At this very moment I have Advent devotions to write and bulletins to prepare and Thanksgiving decorations to put away and the garden has still not been cleaned up from the summer.  If I rest, none of this will be accomplished and yet, the tension in my shoulders begs for a break and again, God whispers, "trust me."